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From the more powerful factions of the Texas political ecosystem, the crusade for Texas election integrity undertaken by Dr. Laura Pressley, Ph.D. has caused heated and passionate debate.

There are those, primarily amongst the grassroots of the liberty movement, that have embraced her research, findings, theories and conclusions. They support the language within the Texas GOP platform addressing election integrity concerns. They continually urge Dr. Pressley to continue with her fight and are ardent supporters.

Other factions, even those within the infrastructure of Texas election conduct, have become vociferous opponents of Dr. Pressley. They feel her research is flawed, cherry-picked, and besmirches the government employees charged with protecting election integrity. They believe the efforts of Dr. Pressley are an insult to their work. Actors within these factions have called her litigation against Travis County for election infractions are frivolous.

Dr. Pressley has traveled Texas attempting to educate voters about what she has discovered. She covered thousands of miles and spoken to perhaps thousands of Texans. Yet, there is nothing like the power of electronic media and RagingEephantsRadio.com.

We now present to you, her entire PowerPoint presentation with all of her research, finding, conclusions, and theories. It’s YOU, the Texas voter, that can now make a determination if her efforts possess veracity.

Here are the links to the first two videos in the RERvideo series, Dr. Laura Pressley – Examining Texas Election Integrity.

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Order — the old order — has been restored at the Travis County Republican Party, with James Dickey reclaiming the chairmanship that he lost to Robert Morrow, with much national to-do,in the party’s March 1 primary.

With the votes of 62 of the 92 precinct chairs who filled a room at the Crowne Plaza Austin for more than 31/2 hours Tuesday night, Dickey succeeded the man who had supplanted him when a surge of new voters — drawn mostly by Donald Trump’s candidacy — elected Morrow, a man whose provocative persona and fringe politics would have presumably alienated an electorate that knew more about him.

“It’s nice to have the Republican Party in Travis County back on strong footing and to have the precinct chairs right the mistake that unfortunately some voters made without really being careful, and I hope that’s a lesson that everybody takes from this,” Dickey said.

“If you don’t know who you’re voting for,” he said, “please do not guess — there is the possibility of a very bad result.”

On Tuesday night, Dickey won with an electorate that knew him well.

Twenty-six votes went to Brendan Steinhauser, an Austin political consultant with national and state political experience, and two went to Matt Lawrence, a political unknown. Two precinct chairs abstained.

Morrow, who wasn’t in attendance, was on Twitter expressing his congratulations to Dickey — his preferred candidate — on his win, and promoting his own candidacy for president.

It was that candidacy — filing in Texas as a certified write-in candidate for president — that cost Morrow his chairmanship. State election law doesn’t allow a party chair to run for other elective office, and, with that, his unorthodox tenure ended.

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AUSTIN, Texas — An ex-chairman of the Travis County Republican Party has been re-elected after his unconventional successor lost the job by filing to run for U.S. president.

James Dickey was re-elected Tuesday night by Republicans meeting in Austin.

Robert Morrow in March was elected head of the GOP in heavily Democratic Travis County, in spite of his history of vulgar comments and conspiracy theories. Morrow was decried both parties for his remarks.

As I’ve sat back and tried tried to make sense of this valley of frustration that Texas has found itself in again, I haven’t been able to ignore the fact that there are a few factors in play that have all worked together to lead Texas to this point.

The reality, though, is not all of these factors hold the same weight. At the end of the day, this is a coaching issue, and ultimately Charlie Strong’s issue.

We can’t just say “youth” is the problem

Look, I get it. We absolutely can’t ignore the fact that youth is still effecting this team.

If we just take a look at the starters on defense, I could argue that the best players at at least seven of the 11 positions on defense are sophomores, with freshman Malcolm Roach making a case to be in that discussion.

If I include freshman Brandon Jones at one of the safety positions, who’s a former five-star recruit that’s been making the most of his small amount of playing time on special teams, we could increase that number to at least eight players.

And hey, I’m the guy that’s continued to say one thing that could help this defense the most is another offseason. So I get this team, and defense, is still young.

But we can’t just turn our palms up, shrug our shoulders, and chalk this up to youth. These players may be young, but they’re still talented.

Their talent is a reason a handful of these players were on pre-season award and watch-lists. And their talent is a reason many were highly-touted recruits out of high school.

The blame shouldn’t end with them, or even really rest on them for too long. They may have been the ones on the field making the mistakes, but the talent is there enough for improvements to have been made over the offseason.

The improvements weren’t made, though, and that’s why this is mainly a coaching issue. This is a Vance Bedford and Charlie Strong issue.

The criticism of Vance Bedford is fair

While watching the ‘Horns loss against Cal play-out in front of me late Saturday evening, I was surrounded by a group of friends..

Over the course of that four hours or so, I must have heard “Vance”, “Bedford”, or the combo of that full name yelled out a handful of times. And the statements being blurted out weren’t compliments either.

At the time, I tried to hold myself back from letting my emotions lead me to a knee-jerk conclusion or response. I wanted to see the entire game before coming to a conclusion.

But sometimes, the knee-jerk and emotional responses are right… A lot of this does fall on Vance Bedford, and there’s no denying that.

Entering his third season as the defensive coordinator for the Longhorns, Bedford had another entire offseason to get the defense pointed in the right direction, but he couldn’t get it done.

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Tonight, Thursday, September 22, 2016, a fundraiser was scheduled to be held to benefit State Rep. Sarah Davis (R-Houston RER42). The location was the home of John Nau, of Silver Eagle Distributors, in Houston. The special guest will be Speaker of the House Joe Straus (R-San Antonio RER0).

This isn’t the first time that the four-term Speaker has made an excursion into Davis’ district for a money party.

Davis is the most pro-abortion “Republican” under the pink dome. She’s never voted for any pro-life legislation and is endorsed, yearly, by Planned Parenthood.

Davis is also the first “Republican” that has been endorsed by the pro-homosexual movement PAC, Equality Texas.

Straus, considered to be public enemy number one of the liberty movement in the Texas, and has been the target of grassroots efforts to remove him from the Speaker’s chair since 2011. He’s been masterful at hiding his history of being a supporter of Planned Parenthood. Although he routinely boasts of the pro-life legislation that has passed while he’s been speaker, as revealed by Jim Graham of Texas Right to Life in this RERhotclip, there has been no significant pro-life legislation passed during a regular session of the Texas legislature in 12 years and the four sessions of Straus’ Speakership. Any pro-life legislation has been passed during special or emergency sessions where Straus’ power is significantly diminished.

Straus, and other big GOP plutocratic donors listed as sponsors of the money party, are defying the Texas GOP Platform that prohibits financial assistance being provided to any candidate or officeholder that does not support the pro-life planks of the platform.

The usual suspects are listed as sponsors and attendees, with a few surprises on the list. It begins with the money party host, John Nau. Nau is a well-known funder of status quo Straus-ians, and was a huge donor to the challenger’s campaign against liberty movement champion State Rep. Jonathan Stickland (R-Bedford RER99) for the 2016 GOP primary back in March.

Right at the top of the list is Texans for Lawsuit Reform (TLR). One of the more influential PACs in the state, TLR is notorious for financing both GOP and Democrat candidates with the common thread being pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, and the plutocratic status quo of the Pink Dome. With TLR’s platinum level donation, the total donations toward Davis from TLR is quickly approaching $400,000 for her political career with tens of thousands of dollars personally being donated by TLR head, Dick Weekley of Weekley Homes.

The pile of big-money lobbyist listed as donors at the platinum ($5,000), gold ($2,500), silver ($1,000) and bronze ($500) levels will gross Davis approximately $100,000 from the money party.

Two of the individual donors to Davis’ treasury at the silver level that certainly raise eyebrows is Harris County Judge Ed Emmett and his wife Gwen A close friend of Straus, and considered the “toll road king” of Texas, Emmett has made his neo-morality leanings more visible with his cozy relationship with former Houston Mayor, Annise Parker, and his aggressive campaign to oust social conservative Jared Woodfill as the Harris County GOP Chair.

Strong Straus ally and financial sponsor, Red McCombs of San Antonio (yes, McCombs as in UT McCombs School of Business) pitched in at the gold level. McCombs is known for his automobile dealership empire, his interest in Clear Channel Communications, his past holdings of the San Antonio Spurs, and his involvement with the construction of the Circuit of the Americas Formula 1 track on the outskirts of Austin. Coupled with a gold level donation from Gulf States Toyota PAC, buying a Tesla in Texas may be denied to Texas consumers for another couple of legislative sessions.

University of Houston PAC made a gold level contribution, with U of H evangelist Welcome Wilson, Sr. coughing up an additional $1,000, himself at the silver level.

Apostle Claver gives a rundown of the prominent politicos that are listed as sponsors of the $$$ party scheduled to fill Davis’ campaign coffers with $100,000+.

Updated September 21, 17:50: McLaren has denied the claims, confirming it “is not in discussion with Apple in respect of any potential investment.”

An exclusive report by The Financial Times has claimed Apple is in talks to acquire Formula 1 team owner McLaren Technology Group.

Rumours around a potential F1 acquisition surfaced in July and the claims suggest the tech giant has approached the car firm with a view to a full takeover.

The FT quotes “three people briefed on the negotiations” and adds that talks started “several months ago.” The full details of the FT report can be found here.

Apple, traditionally, gave no comment when approached and now McLaren has denied the claims, telling The Verge, the firm “is not in discussion with Apple in respect of any potential investment.”

Reports of Apple’s car development have been floating around for the past two years. In September, a report by the Wall Street Journal suggested the car could be released by 2019 and this link to McLaren seemingly boosts these claims.

Apple’s car program, dubbed Project Titan, is said to be responsible for the design and development of the car. In recent months, Apple has also hired driverless car experts and engineers from Tesla and other car firms.

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A federal judge has ordered Texas to issue new voter education materials, siding with those who accused state officials of misleading voters about identification requirements for the November elections.

U.S. District Judge Nelva Gonzales Ramos on Tuesday ordered changesto certain press releases, posters placed at polling locations and materials on state websites related to voting in the Nov. 8 elections.

She is also requiring that “all materials related to the education of voters, poll workers, and election officials that have not yet been published shall reflect the language” of a prior court order allowing those who arrive at the polls without one of seven forms of photo identification required under state law to cast a ballot.

Ramos’ order came after the federal government and other groups challenging the state’s photo ID law — ruled discriminatory by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit —accused Texas of circulating “inaccurate or misleading information” about a temporary fix she ordered for the upcoming election.

Though voters who possess photo identification are expected to bring it to the polls in November, those without it still have the opportunity to vote. They may sign an affidavit certifying they are U.S. citizens and present proof of residence, such as a utility bill, bank statement or paycheck.

Ramos last month ordered Texas to spend $2.5 million to educate the public about these relaxed requirements.

That order said Texas must educate voters about “the opportunity for voters who do not possess” photo identification “and cannot reasonably obtain it to cast a regular ballot.”

But the U.S. Department of Justice and other plaintiffs argued that Texas recast the language of that order by limiting voting to those with photo IDs or those who “have not obtained” and “cannot obtain” such identification.

The key difference, plaintiffs argued, was that Texas stripped the word “reasonably,” potentially discouraging those who could obtain photo identification only after surpassing significant hurdles.

Chad Dunn, a Houston-based attorney who represented groups suing the state, suggested the difference was more significant than it might initially sound.

“The fear is that somebody hears that ‘can’t’ language and thinks: ‘I can drive to Arkansas and get my birth certificate, and I can get back today and get down to an office, and potentially get an ID issued — but I’d miss picking my kids up from school, and I’d miss an intolerable amount of income from work,” he said. “So I have an impediment for doing so, but I suppose it’s possible” to get a photo ID.

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FORT WORTH, Texas – A federal judge in Texas has blocked the Obama administration from enforcing rules requiring public schools to let transgender students use bathrooms and locker rooms that conform to their gender identity.

Responding to a lawsuit filed by Texas and joined by 12 other states, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor issued a preliminary injunction late Sunday, ruling that the directive violated federal notice and comment requirements and contradicted existing law and regulations.

The injunction applies nationwide, but O’Connor said states that have chosen to accommodate transgender students “will not be impacted.”

“Those states who do not want to be covered by this injunction can easily avoid doing so by state law,” the judge added.

The injunction was issued hours before most Texas public students began the 2016-17 school year.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Monday that he was pleased that O’Connor “ruled against the Obama administration’s latest illegal federal overreach.”

“This president is attempting to rewrite the laws enacted by the elected representatives of the people, and is threating to take away federal funding from schools to force them to conform. That cannot be allowed to continue,” Paxton said in a written statement.

The Obama administration is expected to ask the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the ruling.

Harrold Independent School District, a small rural district near Wichita Falls, also joined the lawsuit after its school board — at the request of Paxton’s office — approved a policy limiting bathroom use to each student’s sex as listed on their birth certificate.

In an Aug. 12 hearing in Fort Worth, lawyers for Texas argued that a temporary injunction was necessary to thwart the Obama administration’s attempt to override the will of local school districts by imposing its definition of “gender identity” on all public schools, Paxton’s lawyers said.

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It’s a question most Texas politicos aren’t used to asking, let alone having to debate: How close, really, is the presidential race in the Lone Star State?

Yet in recent weeks, the question has taken on new salience thanks to a batch of polls showing the contest within single digits in a a state that typically picks Republican presidents by overwhelming margins. The numbers are breathing new life into Democratic hopes that the state will become more competitive, while fueling Republican derision of what they see as flawed polls — and the unfounded hype to go with them.

If anything is certain at this point, it’s that this is an unusual election cycle in Texas.

“I think the emerging picture is one that looks a little bit tighter in the presidential election than we’ve seen in recent elections in the state,” said Joshua Blank, whose Texas Lyceum poll, released Thursday, found GOP nominee Donald Trump leading Democratic rival Hillary Clinton by only 7 percentage points among likely voters. “The Lyceum poll is another data point in a trend for a race that increasingly looks in the single digits at this time.”

That means Trump is behind where a generic Republican would be at this juncture in a general election in Texas — 10 to 12 points ahead of his Democratic opponent, added Blank, the manager of polling and research at the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.

The Lyceum Poll was the third survey in recent weeks to find a single-digit race in Texas, which the past two GOP nominees, Mitt Romney and John McCain, won by 16 and 12 points, respectively. According to a polling averagecompiled by the website RealClear Politics, Trump is now ahead of Clinton by 7.2 points in Texas.

Democrats are expressing cautious optimism about the state of the race in Texas, saying the polling, at the least, bodes well for down-ballot candidates and the post-2016 future of the beleaguered state party. Few are openly talking about winning the state this time around, though they cannot help but wonder what the margin will look like on Election Day if it is so irregularly narrow two months out.

“Three polls in a row can’t be wrong, right?” Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa told the Texas Tribune on Saturday as he left the opening of a Clinton campaign office in Houston. It was there that U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston declared, “We are going to win Texas,” on the heels of a Washington Post/SurveyMonkey poll that showed the race tied in the Lone Star State.

Such declarations draw long eye rolls from Texas Republicans, who frequently refer to Democrats’ largely failed efforts to move the state in their direction during the 2014 elections. While some concede Trump may not carry the state as much as, say, Romney did, GOP operatives are skeptical of the methodologies used for recent public polls and suggest private surveys have found Trump leading by double digits, a more normal result.

“The theory that Texas is in play from the presidential standpoint — currently, as of right now — is just not the case,” said Chris Perkins, a top Texas pollster who works for Republicans.

If the Trump campaign is worried about the numbers, it is not entirely showing it. While the nominee has taken the unusual step of tacking public appearances on to his fundraising swings through Texas, his advisers and allies have not given the impression it is meant to do anything more than soak up the free media attention that greets him wherever he goes.

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A recent Texas attorney general interpretation of a law about cameras in special education classrooms may spell an unexpected half-million-dollar expense for Amarillo Independent School District.

An opinion last week from Attorney General Ken Paxton broadened the scope of a law, passed in 2015, that requires districts to install cameras in special education classrooms should a parent, school staff member or trustee request it.

Lawmakers drafted the legislation in response to concerns that children in special education were being mistreated by educators.

According to its framers, the law was meant to be applied only on a classroom-by-classroom basis.

However, according to Paxton’s opinion dated Sept. 13, the way it is worded actually means that a single request requires districts to install cameras in all of its special education classrooms, possibly placing “significant financial burdens upon certain school districts.”

And Amarillo ISD has received a request, district spokeswoman Holly Shelton said. Shelton said Monday she was unable to provide details about who made the request or exactly when it was made.

School officials have estimated it will cost $500,000 to pay for cameras in about 75 classrooms to comply with the request.

Pati Buchenau, Amarillo ISD’s chief financial officer, said the district had not budgeted money for the law because of early indications that the expense for school districts would be minimum.

Paxton’s opinion, she said, “jumped the cost from $10,000 or $15,000, which we could handle in our maintenance budget, to half-a-million dollars.”

Buchenau said if Amarillo ISD must spend the money, district staff will have to ask the district’s board of trustees to allow it to be pulled from the general fund balance.

The current estimated general fund balance is $105.3 million, Buchenau said Tuesday.